NOT!
Yes, yes. I know that you read headlines like
VATICAN SLAMS INTELLIGENT DESIGN
from know-nothing MSM sources.
The basis of these stories is a recent piece that appeared in L’Osservatore Romano that did slam intelligent design.
But there’s a problem.
L’Osservatore Romano is not Acta Apostolica Sedis. The latter, as its Latin name indicates, is a chronicle of the Acts of the Apostolic See. L’Osservatore Romano does not have the same status, nor do articles it prints.
John Allen clarifies:
One question that a number of American media outlets asked me this week: Is the L’Osservatore article an official Vatican statement?
The quick answer is "no," but as always with quick answers, things are a bit more complicated. The article was not issued by a Vatican dicastery or approved by the pope, and while L’Osservatore is informally known as the "Vatican newspaper," technically only the items in the "Nostre Informazioni" box amount to official Vatican releases. Yet the contents of the paper reflect attitudes and judgments at high levels, and in that sense provide a window onto what at least some Vatican officials are thinking [SOURCE].
The real story here is that churchmen are split on the subject of evolution. Some, such as Cardinal Schonborn, make the point that the Christian faith is incompatible with purely naturalistic conceptions of evolution. Others, like the author of the piece in L’Osservatore Romano, at least appear more open to purely naturalistic conceptions.
How this all shakes out we will have to wait and see. I suspect that PART of the dispute between the parties may turn out to be semantic. (But only part.)
However that may be, in neither case can such reports be accurately represented as "Rome’s" or "the Vatican’s" or "the Catholic Church’s" position on this matter.
NONE of them are official.
So the headlines you saw screaming "Church Opposes Evolution" after Schonborn’s essay in the NYT came out were inaccurate, and the new ones screaming "Church Opposes Intelligent Design" after the L’Osservatore Romano piece are inaccurate.
The reason for the inaccuracy, of course, is obvious.
The people writing the headlines are too dangerously unqualified to keep their jobs.

